A National Government? No, no, it's a PLOT!
SB Dissanayake sees a plot in MR's invitation to the UNP to form a national government. Give me a sec, I need to go laugh.
Yesterday's
Daily Mirror gives SB's analysis of the motivation behind MR's invitation "as far as [he] can see, this is an attempt to create unnecessary rifts within the [UNP]" followed by "the President was planning to go for a snap general election by April next year, after weakening the UNP." As far as he can see? It certainly can't be very far then.The primary problem here apparently is that MR's letter was sent to Karu J and not "the leader" himself. So again for the UNP, it's all about the party & its leadership first, the country second. (Was it possible MR sent Karu J the letter cos Ranil was abroad at the time? Noooooo, not possible. What is possible is it that it is all a PLOT!)
National governments are usually formed when a country is faced with a threat/catastrophe. In such a context, the democratic principle of having a 'strong' opposition doesn't apply since unity is needed to first face the threat. MR is asking for a national government now cos this is precisely what Sri Lanka is facing right now - the first "thing-to-do" in everyone's agenda is an end to the "national question" . At least I would hope it is the first.
Surprisingly, the JVP & JHU came up with winners this time around - "The JHU said it would welcome the President’s move for a national government..." & even better from Anura Kumara Dissanayake "the structure of the proposed national government is not important. Only the objective is important. A national consensus is needed to defeat terrorism and build ethnic harmony among all the communities" (both from
The Daily Mirror, 28 Aug) but the surprise was shortlived for now it seems the JVP is saying no, no, not till you do exactly as we say first!In an article in The Sunday Times (27/08), the writer talks of the 1965 national govt - the UNP, under Dudley Senanayake, won the most number of seats but it wasn't enough to form a govt - & hence the national govt. This national govt consisted of (I quote):
* K.M.P. Rajarathne, the symbol of Sinhala extremism,
while
That govt stayed in office for its 5 full years.
But today's UNP? Still "considering" the issue of national govt to see if "[MR's] policies tally or have only little difference with our policies" (Tissa Attanayake) though
GL Pieris said on Tue "we should assist the government in power, to arrive at a solution." Then today SB's discovery of MR's Plot.I would have hoped the UNP would learn from its ancestors. But then again, how does one learn from ancestors it never knew? How could one learn from ancestors when the pot is so mixed up with all the hopping around people seem to do these days that they themselves would have no idea who their ancestors were?
4 comments:
she did the dreaded accounts exam, then the daily rant (as per usual hehe), and then she went to sleep and sleep and sleep .....
Just like every bloody Sri Lankan, politics interests me more than art, may be that because there are no much of exciting art around like politics. National government is one of my hope ~ one of majority’s hope for long time. Whoever not going to support that, will break my heart very badly…
Of course the UNP won't join a national government. Nor would the SLFP if it was in the opposition. It's about realpolitik, not national interest.
What could happen is a breakaway fraction of the UNP (possibly led by Karu) joining the government. While this is unlikely, it's similar to what happened in 1965.
Idealism is a stupid thing in politics. In any case, a national government won't necessarily solve the problem because a new opposition would emerge to fill the void.
What we need to have is a democratic dictatorship, if such an oxymoron is possible.
Btw, JVP and JHU would love to have the UNP and SLFP join together and form a national government because then there would be no one but themselves to fill the void created by the lack of an opposition party.
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